Inflation in the United States continued to climb in April, according to the State Street PriceStats index, which shows it rose 0.9 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) basis.

While that is an improvement over March’s record surge of 1.4 percent, it still represents the third-largest monthly increase since the series began in July 2008. As a result, the annual inflation rate moved firmly above 4 percent and continues to accelerate.

State Street PriceStats enables daily inflation measurement with just a three-day lag, offering timely insights that complement traditional government statistics. It serves as a valuable leading indicator and is especially useful during periods when government releases are delayed or unavailable. Its daily insights are increasingly relevant for policymakers, investors, and analysts seeking to track inflation dynamics in real time.

Covering over 27 countries and multiple sectors — including food, health, and transportation — State Street PriceStats uses consistent methodologies to ensure its indicators are comparable across geographies, time periods, and official data sources.

The record-breaking monthly jump in the State Street PriceStats index in March was mirrored in official readings. In particular, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a 1.41 percent month-over-month increase in inflation (NSA), excluding shelter. Despite the size of that jump, there are few signs that the inflation shock eased in April.

State Street PriceStats rose a further 0.9 percent in April — a modest step down from March, but still the third-largest increase since the series began in July 2008. This pushed the annual inflation rate up even higher, climbing past 4 percent by the end of March and surpassing 4.5 percent on April 19, before beginning to level off toward late April.

This trajectory suggests that the official inflation rate, which remains below 3.5 percent excluding shelter, still has potential to rise further.

A key point of reassurance is that, for now, the dramatic moves in inflation are largely limited to fuel prices. Other sectors including food, household equipment, and health and beauty are showing more typical price increases. That said, robust gains in apparel and electronics warrant closer attention.

Overall, the pattern remains consistent with March’s trend: Higher energy prices have rapidly passed through to create grim inflation headlines, but contagion into other prices remains largely absent — for now.
 

About the State Street PriceStats indicators

The State Street PriceStats series are designed to provide a low-latency and high-frequency view into inflation trends that is comparable to official consumer price index (CPI). The features of the process are as follows:

• Daily online price collection: State Street PriceStats collects price data daily from over 1,500 multi-line retailers using web scraping technologies, focusing on those with both online and physical stores. Research has shown that retailers tend to adjust online prices first.
• Data structuring and cleaning: Models then clean and standardize raw price data to ensure consistency across more than 40 million products, converting unstructured HTML into structured datasets ready for analysis.
• Categorization and quality checks: State Street PriceStats categorizes prices by economic sectors and sub-sectors, calculates performance statistics, and applies a red-flag system with daily manual checks to resolve data anomalies.
• Index calculation using econometric techniques: State Street PriceStats computes daily inflation statistics using proprietary econometric methods and publishes the results with a three-day lag.
• Retailer and product selection: State Street PriceStats selects retailers based on market share and city presence and includes over 500,000 daily prices — far exceeding the 80,000 monthly prices used by the BLS.
• Use of CPI weights and no quality adjustments: State Street PriceStats applies official CPI weights where possible and adjusts for online data characteristics, calculating price changes only from consecutive observations of identical products without applying standard quality adjustments.

For more information or to request a demo, visit our State Street PriceStats Solutions page.